Le Wagon

I am writing this in hopes to help others that are searching for a coding bootcamp. Do not believe the positive reviews - do not go to Le Wagon!!

The  curriculum is outdated - you will learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails . Upon completing the bootcamp two months ago, I have met with over a dozen potential employers, all of which are shocked that we learned these programs. One of them even told me they thought it was unethical. I now agree with him. I met with one recruiter that has access to thousands of developer positions across Canada. He did a search in his database for junior positions with Ruby on Rails. Zero jobs were returned. He was doing this to prove a point to me and told me I should start learning other languages.

When I expressed my frustrations to the people running the program, they tell me that employers are looking for junior level people that are "willing to learn" and that it doesn't matter that we learned Ruby. Maybe this was true five years ago, but it is not true now. The market is getting saturated. 

There is also no career support. I get occasional emails about junior level positions in Montreal from someone that works there, all of which require that you know React or some other language that we didn't learn. 

If you are in Montreal, you should go to Decode MTL or Lighthouse. They are both Javascript based courses and will teach you Node and React. Decode also assigns a TA to each graduate to help them with the interview process and looking for jobs. I really wish I had done that one. Don't make the same mistake as me!

I wish I could give this program less than one star overall - but it looks like I'm required to give it one. I chose this bootcamp because of the reviews, which after completing the bootcamp truly baffle me. 

Before going to Le Wagon, I was working as a marketer but have been wanted to do something else as my career.  After 3 months of Le Wagon's bootcamp, I realized this is what I want to do as my career since it was so much fun learning coding. It actually changed my life! Teachers are great, and I noticed after I got a job, but the curricuram is also great. It's made to make sure everybody understands how pure ruby works and also it covers about database and oop as well.  Now I got a job as a backend developer, and I really appreciate they covered those concepts as well since thanks to that, now it's so much easier to get my tasks done.

I did Le Wagon in Montreal in the Winter 2019 batch, and presently my brother is doing Lighthouse Labs. Comparing the two side-by-side I really wish that I had done Lighthouse instead.

Le Wagon teaches mainly Ruby, and you learn no JavaScript frameworks. The class size is around 25 students, as compared to less than 10 for Lighthouse. The curriculum at Le Wagon is provided for them by the organization, the founder of the Montreal branch has never worked as a programmer, and the bootcamp is much less rigourous. Lighthouse will really throw you in the deep end, but Le Wagon if you are on the task you can finish all the content most days.

Career-wise, there is some support from an administrative assistant, but the job I found was not at all through their assistance. They offer very little interview support and no training on technical interviews - because they say they are "startup" focussed. Almost all of the jobs listed on their placement board are in Europe, most in Paris. If you want a certificate, sure, do Le Wagon, but if you want a heavy-duty bootcamp experience, look elsewhere.

A few short months ago I sat in office in Sweden and I realised I needed a change from the monotony of my daily life, I work as freelance art director and have years of  design and graphic skills in my toolbelt.  I always believed if I could help build clients websites I would be the full package!

After speaking with some friends who worked with coding they recommended I look into Le Wagon bootcamp. They also believed that with my strong design background that I could excel at coding. My mind was instantly  opened to world of possibilities. I figured that it would be smart to investment of  my time to enter into a full stack developer course where I could quickly Learn this new skill.

I knew going into the bootcamp that it would be hard but it was way harder then I thought, and surprisingly I loved every minute of the challenges that I was presented with!  During the course I received so much support from the TA and teachers. Everyone is there to make sure you succeed and will spend hours with you to make sure you grasp the 9 week curriculum. I am very thankful for all extra help I received! I finished the course have a strong knowledge which I continue to build upon.

Now I can say that I’am recent graduate of the le wagon Bali batch #253 I have successfully learned:

-Ruby on rails

-How to api are used, as well as JSON, and scrapping

-Relational databases, SQL, Postgres

-HTML,CSS, Bootstrap

-ES6 Javascript

-wireframes, prototyping, UI design

-test driven development

-git, GitHub, and technical workflow.

In additional to all these amazing new things I have learned,  I have also gained a new community of friends and peers who I will know for the rest of of career/ life!

After studying business and working in various industries such as advertising and finance I finally decided to do the Wagon which I have wanted to do for a long time. I do not regret it at all as I have learned so many new skills, new coding languages and built a website with my team. It is quite intense but the whole support makes it a lot easier and the "buddy" system is also very nice as you work every day with someone new and meet very interesting people. Everyone is there to learn and happy to be there which is extremely pleasant. The ambiance is very good and the teachers are amazing. Really feel part of the Wagon family and recommend the Wagon 100% to everyone that thinks about it !

I had the best experience at Le Wagon bootcamp, at its first Kyoto batch.

In terms of the learning, I was surprised to see how I started from a complete beginner ( I didn't even know what the different programming languages are), and within 9 months could build an app that I wouldn't have even thought was possible to build. I like my app so much that I am currently working on it further to see how I can commercialize it. What made the learning experience great was that the teachers at Le Wagon are knowledgeable and dedicated to each person's learning, and the curriculum is well designed in a way that makes you enjoy the process of learning how to code. For me, my objective from learning how to code was never to be a developer, but to work on the commercial aspects of a tech company and be able to work seamlessly with the product team through a deeper understanding of the technicalities. I managed to fulfill this objective - and much more, in terms of my technical knowledge - and has proven to me invaluable in my current job.

But Le Wagon is not just about teaching you how to code - it also helps you plug into the tech community in the city through various events and meetups with startups and other tech companies in the city, which has been extremely helpful as I was thinking through my career move. 

And finally, Le Wagon was an extremely fun and enriching experience. As the first batch in Kyoto, we had a small group, and we had a lot of fun together, going for dinners on weekdays, going out on weekends, and doing trips to nearby cities. Added to this, a chance to be in Kyoto - a beautiful and serene city - made my 2 months an amazing experience. Le Wagon was exactly what I needed - in every way.

I already had some skills in coding websites, I had already been a front-end developer at the beginning of my career, before moving to other paths. When I decided to go back to programming, I needed a serious update and I didn’t know where to start.
I finally chose to attend a bootcamp, as it was the most efficient way to be back on track. I picked Le Wagon after a very long benchmark, I checked that the program matched the expectations of a moving tech market, and I found their stack was clever, mixing powerful technologies with up-to-date best practices. I was not disappointed.
Their style is quite unique, they teach to code but they also teach to focus on the product. A website is an intricate complexity of technologies, user experience and design. There, you learn to deliver ambitious project that people can really use.
I am a freelance developer now, and happy to be so.

Not knowing exactly what I wanted to do after school, I went to study law for 4 years at La Sorbonne. I was really interested in it but felt that creativity was missing in that field. Moreover, I was passionate about new technologies and had the dream of one day starting my own business. I was always getting new project ideas but didn't know how to make them live. I had tried to get in touch with developers, but without any knowledge in tech, I had little legitimacy and it was tough to convince them in joining my projects.
After going to many tech workshops and meetups, I heard of Le Wagon which sounded like the exact solution to my pain. At first, I was scared I would not be good enough to follow their program, because I had stopped studying maths for a few years. But I decided to give it a go anyway.
The training was fast-paced and required full involvement, the one that makes you feel you're pushing your brain to its limits! However hard it was, it was really worth it as for every minute spent there, I knew I was learning so much and getting real actionable skills that would enable me to create web products on my own. I felt as if I was getting magic powers!
On another level, it is also a place where I got to mingle with creative and motivated people who then became great friends.
As a result, I'm really thankful to Le Wagon as it helped me to make the switch to a new industry which better suits me.

After my final internship in a Web agency as a Business developper (commercial), I was frustrated to be the one who speaks about digital stuffs, but, in reality, doesn’t know how it works.
As I was graduated, I decided, before looking for a new job, to learn a little bit more about programming language by myself.
I quickly decided to join the bootcamp offered by the Wagon.  One of my old colleagues told me about it, and as the program was perfect for me (short but intense) : “Ok, let’s go !“.
No regrets ! The bootcamp was amazing ! It’s impressive how much valuable things you’re able to learn in such a short time. Once more, I’ve met incredible people, Thanks Le Wagon.

What seduced me the most about Le Wagon was that I had the possibility to build an MVP during the batch and also the huge community of talented people (perfect to find collaborators with same background).

After the intensive 9 weeks, I can say that I fully reached my goals. I came to Le Wagon Barcelona to find a team and build a real product and the result was better than expected! 

During the last two weeks of the program, we built Nokues  - a mobile solution to skip the lines in clubs, restaurants and supermarkets. We fully coded the MVP in 10 days and it's ready to be tested. Now we are working to bring it to the market very soon! 

As my son said when he came to visit me one day to Le Wagon: "Daddy, this is the best job of the world".

I have just completed the first Le Wagon bootcamp (batch #135) in Melbourne and it was a one of the best learning experiences of my life. Prior to the bootcamp I was struggling to figure out what my next career move was going to be. I had worked as a copywriter and consultant but never really loved what I was doing and was kind of just going through the motions to get my next pay check. 

Why do the bootcamp? Well, when I was explaining what the role of HTML, CSS and JavaScript was to a friend of mine I kind of had an epiphany - I really enjoy talking about this stuff, why not take it further! I'd done some really basic web development tutorials before starting the bootcamp and had really enjoyed that. Little did I know how much more deeper you can go into the world Ruby and Rails and what you can actually build with a bit of help. 

A mix of great teaching and interesting challenges you do in the first 6 weeks at Le Wagon allows you to have a strong grasp on what's possible. You split into teams and work on a real web app which is just an incredibly exiting thing to be involved in. After the bootcamp you have many options and routes to go down in finding employment or continuing to learn. 

To sum up, if you're an inquisitive person who is interested in learning how web apps are built really consider doing the bootcamp. It opens so many doors and leaves you with a network of talented creative people.